My Autobiography, Chapter 9: Out of a Job at Age 53 and Rebounding

by Paul Pakusch

In my previous chapter, I described how I was layed off from my job of 32 years in 2014.  I knew immediately that I was done with the broadcasting business.  Including the time I spent in high school radio starting at age 14, I had accumulated 39 years of working in radio and TV control rooms.  

While it was a lot of fun in the beginning, the nature of the business had changed so much that none of it was attractive to me anymore.  The truth is that, given a little bit of time, I could very easily have gone right back into it, and right back to my former employer.  Per union contract, I was recalled from layoff three times in the next four months.  I turned them all down.  I had moved on.

I had prepared myself for losing my job as far back as 2007, when there were rumors flying around of impending layoffs.  I survived that round, but decided to make myself ready for another career.  I decided to go back to school and get an accounting degree.  I enrolled in the Accounting program at Monroe Community College.  I already had my BA in Communications from SUNY Geneseo, so I was able to transfer in credits from core courses.  I attended school part time and finished with my AAS Degree in Accounting in 2011.

So, in 2014 when I was layed off, I was ready to jump right into an accounting job.  However, I was totally turned off by the idea of working in a corporate environment.  I found plenty of starting positions listed in the classifieds, but all the jobs that looked promising to me were in places I wanted nothing to do with. 

I recognized that I need to explore other options for me.  I went to some job hunting seminars at Rochester Works and got a counselor who was supposed to help guide me in my new job search.  It’s a fantastic program and it doesn’t cost anything.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with finding the right job for them.

As I mentioned at the end of my previous chapter, I booked a trip to Florida the day I was layed off.  I figured I had the time, some unused airline and hotel credit, and some car rental vouchers that were due to expire if I didn’t use them.  I had also learned that one of my favorite bands, the Spirit of America Fife & Drum Corps at Disney’s Epcot park, was being shut down.  So, I wanted one more opportunity to see them perform.  I travelled to Florida a couple weeks later and spent three nights there.  One day in the park, and two days at a poolside.  It gave me time to think about my career options.

Through the years, Mary and I had occasionally considered the possibility of my becoming a school bus driver upon retiring from Channel 10.  The idea was becoming more and more attractive to me.  We had always wanted to travel the world together.  Working on the school calendar would give me the same vacation time as her, which would give us the opportunity to travel together.

I knew that I would take a significant cut in my income by becoming a school bus driver.  I wanted to supplement my income by following my dream of opening my own bookkeeping service.  So, I rented some office space and opened up a bookkeeping and tax preparation business.  Since I had two rooms, I decided to also make one of the rooms a gallery for my photography.  Talk about diversification! 

I had a great open house event to show off my new photography gallery.  A lot of people attended and I sold some framed pictures.  But after that, attendance and sales plummeted.  I got a lot of compliments on my photography, but very few people were buying.  Bookkeeping was a tough start for me; in retrospect, I recognize that I did not do a good job marketing myself.  Tax preparation actually went quite well.  From the time I opened the office in November of 2014 to around May of 2015, when I moved out of the office, I had a pretty decent thing going with tax preparation.

The big surprise in all of this was a little side venture I had dabbled in that I never expected to get much out of:  Officiating weddings!

 I will devote upcoming chapters to my experience with Accounting & Tax Preparation, Photography, Officiating Weddings, being a Union officer, scholl bud dribing, and more.

Subsequent entries to my autobiography series will be posted every Saturday morning until further notice.  If you wish to subscribe to notifications of my posts, please enter your e-mail address in the form at the right, under "Follow by e-mail."  If you wish to view previous blog posts of my autobiography, please click on the link under "blog categories" at the top right, "autobiography."